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How To Gather User Feedback On Your WordPress Site

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Gather User Feedback On Your WordPress Site

The most valuable resource for any website is its visitors. You can reach out to them for providing feedback on your website in general or on any aspect of it in particular. The feedback received will help you make the important decisions to steer your website in the right direction. Feedback will also help the website to improve and be more attuned to the needs of the target audience. In the long run, this will add value to the website, translate into a wider audience and benefit both the website and its readers.

Analytics is one way of gathering data, but it just gives you the information, the trends and the patterns as they happen. To interpret these trends and patterns, or the “why” behind them, you would need to collect feedback from readers and put it together to make sense of it.

You can learn a great deal by keeping your ear to the ground and keeping tabs on the niche you operate in. But WordPress can help you as well. As with the case with most other functions, WordPress has plugins for gathering user feedback as well. The plugins can do the job quickly, efficiently and without distracting the reader too much. On collating the information gathered, websites can have a fairly clear picture of what the readers have to say.

You always have the option of adding a standard contact form in a separate page on your WordPress and in that way totally avoiding a plugin. But a dedicated plugin can do the job more effectively. They can coax readers to respond and give you the feedback in a concise manner, making it easy for you use.

Feedback can come in many ways – suggestions, ratings, comments or even votes on comments. Or visitors can submit bugs or take surveys. If you are just starting out with your website, maybe you can even write personalized mails to your first customers and seek feedback. They will feel privileged enough to give you valuable suggestions.

Let me take you through some of the plugins that can be used for gathering user feedback on your WordPress.

WordPress Form Builder

WordPress Form Builder is a comprehensive plugin for collecting customized feedback from visitors, storing it in the database and accessing it on a dashboard.

The forms can be intelligently structured and conditional logic can be applied to keep data collection to the minimum. The settings, layout and elements of the forms can be customized without any need for code. Use these forms for quizzes, surveys, data collection and user feedback.

WP Form Builder

For greater interaction, users can track their submissions on a portal, edit it or upload files with it. Users can also be assigned scores and ranks. Different messages can be flashed to users scoring different ranks. The plugin is integrated with quality email service providers, and based on scoring or any other criteria, different emails can be sent to users with different levels of scores.

All these features make it possible for you to receive feedback, segregate your visitors based on scores and then send appropriate emails to each type of visitors. This popular plugin can be purchased on CodeCanyon for $35.

Usernoise Pro Modal Feedback & Contact form

Usernoise Pro Modal Feedback & Contact Form adds a modal form and a customizable feedback button to your WordPress. Every item that appears on the public interface can be customized. This allows you to design and frame questions to suit your exact needs. The shortcode to embed the form right into a post or page is also included.

Feedback can be received in 4 categories that are editable. It works with Akismet to ward off spam. The plugin is multisite compatible and localization ready. It is also compatible with any site template. This plugin can be purchased on CodeCanyon for $12.

Feedweb

Feedweb is a simple plugin that can add a widget to any post you choose. It will allow you to ask your visitors any question. The questions are restricted to the Yes/No format. By framing the questions carefully, precise feedback about the post can be obtained. Questions that are asked once are saved and can be reused later.

Feedweb

Once the plugin is installed, it is possible to be more interactive with readers. They can vote, submit feedback by rating, answer questions, discover new content easily and increase time spent on the blog. The rating widget is animated and HTML5 coded, ensuring security and privacy. The widget will have to be added to each post manually. It can be added in the sidebar by inserting a shortcode. The plugin comes in three versions – Free, Plus and Pro.

WebEngage

Product surveys, lead generation surveys, customer satisfaction surveys or customer expectation surveys are all the normal ways in which an industry collects feedback from the public. WebEngage can help you to conduct these surveys on your website and analyze it, using reporting and analytical modules. Site admins can keep track of all the feedback and data collected or emails received on a convenient console and reply to any suggestions or other feedback right from the console.

Response to feedback need not be standard. Push notifications with or without discounts is possible, and each notification is tracked analytically, so click through rates or visitor profile is made available.

Email subscription links can be added to MailChimp list. Free and paid plans are available, with a 14 day trial for paid plans.

JotForm

If it is a popup feedback form that you think should grace your website, checkout JotForm. The popup will appear on clicking a button that will appear on all the pages when the plugin is activated. The form can be built using the intuitive drag and drop feature. The form and the button can be customized.

JotForm Feedback Button

The great thing about a popup feedback form is that users get to fill in feedback without really leaving the page they were on. After the form has been completed, the visitor can continue where he left off. Email response from users can also be received.

You can use this plugin free up to a 100 submissions every month, after which you will be required to upgrade to a premium Jotform plan.

Feedback Cat

A truly user friendly plugin for collecting feedback is Feedback Cat. It’s free, integrates perfectly with WordPress and there is no effort needed in installation. Simply download and activate. It does not embed any brand of its own into your site.

Feedback Cat

Using the plugin is also easy. Simply create a survey form and publish it. Gather all the feedback that you receive. Moreover, Feedback Cat is 100% free and opensource. So you can modify the code to customize it if you want.

More Feedback Plugins

If you think the plugins above are not for you or if you want a plugin that will mainly collect minimal feedback like a Yes/No Question or star rating system, look into the plugins that follow,

  • WordPress Request and Feedback Plugin: This is an open source plugin and comes at a one time fee of $17. It can be placed anywhere or you can even hide it. Feedback categories can be created and feedback can be commented on or voted by users. The most voted comment is taken to the top.
  • Queryz WordPress Survey: To add a simple popup form on every webpage, try Queryz WordPress Survey. Surveys can be designed as multiple checkboxes, scale or simple text. The plugin is free, but you have to register and create a user account for your WordPress.
  • Simple Feedback Widget: Want to ask just one question of your visitors ? Simple Feedback Widget will help you do just that. After activating the plugin, alter the default question to one that you want to answers to, and then wait for the responses to flood your inbox. If a user finds the question annoying, he can simply click the red “X” against the question, and it will be hidden for 7 days.
  • Feelback Reactions: Pictorial representations always get a better response and Feelback Reactions presents the reader with a set of 5 emotions. One click by a user can generate a load of feedback for the site. You will know which emotions keep visitors on your site and which emotion encourages them to share on social media. Based on their response content will be suggested.
  • Reaction Buttons: This plugin adds convenient buttons at the bottom of your post or anywhere else. Users can click on the button that they find most appropriate. The buttons can be configured to contain any text such as “Like” “Interesting” or anything else. The buttons keep track of the number of times they are clicked and this can be used to collect interesting feedback.
  • Universal Star Rating: To add the classic five star rating that you see on many blogs, install and activate Universal Star Rating. You can add rating option to data, posts, products and services, and have your viewers rate it.
  • Rating Widget: Rating Widget also adds a five star rating review system to your WordPress. This can be added to pages, post, WooCommerce products, BuddyPress users, bbPress forum as well as to Authors.
  • WP-PostRatings: A much downloaded plugin, WP-PostRatings can add an AJAX rating system to your post or page. You can choose to add it to all or selected posts and pages.
  • Multi Rating: To be able to rate individual posts on multiple yardsticks and different questions, you should try Multi Rating. It can be enabled for custom post types and pages. Weights can be assigned to each rating item to adjust the overall rating results.
  • WP Customer Reviews: This is a popular plugin that can be used to set up a separate page on your blog for readers and customers to leave a review or comment. It is multisite and multiuser compatible and has been downloaded many times over.
  • Polldaddy Polls & Ratings: Try this plugin to manage your polls and ratings from within your WordPress dashboard. You can create multiple polls, choose close dates for the polls and also choose to keep results private or make them public.
  • MyEffecto-Instant Visual Feedback: This is a simple widget that can be placed below your post and readers can offer feedback based on emotions.
  • Webay: Webay will help you gather feedback from your eBay account and place it in a carousel in your WordPress.
  • Was This Helpful: As you can guess, this plugin will ask the simple question if the article was helpful. All that is required is a simple Yes/ No answer.

And Finally

It’s always good to receive feedback on any work that you do. The best people from whom you can receive suggestions to improve your site are the folks who visit it. Choose plugins according to the content of your site, the general profile of the visitors landing there and the extent of feedback required. Take care not to overwhelm visitors with too many options.

user-feedback-wordpress
Article by Vishnu WPExplorer.com guest author
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3 Comments

  1. Jim Walsh

    Great article with some very practical suggestions. One problem with surveys and widgets that ask users for some fast free feedback is that it might not be of very high quality. You get what you pay for. Another route is to pay visitors to analyze and provide feedback on your website with a site like feedbackerr.com.

  2. Patrick71

    Thanks for sharing, very helpful! There are many user feedback widget available on the market. If you are interested in a widget to show your business reviews from Google which does not slow down your website speed then I suggest Google Reviews Widget, you should definitely check it out!

  3. Peter Klaus

    Hi All –

    There’s a tool BugRem – I have used & it works superb. As a tech maniac, I suggest to give it a try. I have been using this tool for quite sometime now. It allows me to submit criticism/feedback and bug reports by means of screen capture. As a client, I could also hide any delicate data on the image. Since it is lightweight (less than 8KB), it didn’t slowed down my site. In addition to that, it is simple to incorporate to my site. Based from its features, the tool works with a variety of tools like Jira, Trello, etc.

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